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I found out 8 months ago my husband was having an affair with a much younger work colleague. We have three young children. At the time, he wasn’t treating me very well, I knew something was wrong but he denied it and let me believe I was going crazy. As a result when I did catch him red handed as such I did actually go a bit crazy and told all my friends, family and his family which we both now have to live with. Thinking it was all over, I kicked him out. He continued the affair for about two months after I found out. I am 100% sure it is over now but he still works with her only seeing her once a week. He had told her he loved her, and although denies it now, had in a fantasy world long term plans with her. He says she hates him now as I think she thought they would run off together.

Everything is a trigger for me. I am so full of anger and resentment. I bring it up a lot and really struggle with the fact she works there. It took him a long time to understand he needed to put in strict boundaries at work. For instance, not going in early when she also goes in before anyone else. He has now done all of this. But I have become mean and bitter. He gets really angry when I do. It is destroying our relationship. We are in counselling. How do I let this go? What worked for others?

Firstly, I’m sorry you are here and going through this hell. Others will be along with more advice soon but I would say your anger and resentment are valid reactions. I told everyone about my wife’s affair too. And I went missing and was sectioned so the whole town knows by now. That’s a consequence of trauma, it’s not your fault how you react.

The wisdom of this forum says that for a successful reconciliation there should be no contact between the affair partners and if they work together someone needs to find a new job.

Sounds like you are trying to rugsweep and not deal with the pain and ongoing shit he has created. U t he does that R is a fantasy, no matter how much you want it to work you need to stop thos down to the bare bones and full truth. He needs to find another job or establish a way that there is absolutely no contact with the AP. If he is unwilling to do so then you only have regret not remorse.
Healing from this takes 3-5 years. There are no short cuts. There are no super couples that do it faster. The only way to do it and stay together is 10000000000% honesty and hard work from the WS. Less than that means lies and an attempt at R that will only eventually lead to more pain and trauma.

We say here you have to be willing to lose your M to save it. Unfortunately the M you knew is dead and may have never truly existed. Time for boundaries and making yourself the priority.

Welcome to SI and so sorry you had to find us. When you say you're in counseling, I hope it's IC (individual counseling) and not MC (marriage counseling). Your M (marriage) didn't cheat - your WH (wayward husband) did.

The Healing Library has a lot of great information, including the list of acronyms we use.

Your feelings are normal. You are experiencing trauma, and you may benefit from IC with a betrayal trauma specialist. Bonus points if they have infidelity included. I've never had such anger shoot through me as it did from infidelity. The emotional rollercoaster ride is real.

You'll both need to be tested for STDs. If you need meds for depression, anxiety or sleep, ask your doctor.

Healing takes 2-5 years. R (reconciliation) can take longer. If your WH really wants R, he will find a different job.ANY contact continues the A (affair). Don't worry about letting it go because it's too early for that.

I suggest you both read How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda MacDonald and Not Just Friends by Dr Shirley Glass.

Thank you for your kind messages. We are in marriage counselling as my husband refused to go to individual. He barely wants to attend as is. The counsellor seems very sympathetic towards him as many people were angry with him afterwards and he was isolated. A lot of it has been looking at I feel, how his needs were not met. He has blamed me on a few occasions for his affair and then on other occasions takes full responsibility but it is up and down. The counsellor feels it is because I am up and down

He has put a lot of boundaries in place at work and now rarely goes in but swears he cannot change jobs. The latest arguments this weekend were about his Christmas party, this is where they first got together and he wants to go. He has made it into a lunch thing as opposed to last year which I realise was him initiating the affair as he made the event one where he had to stay over night. He had sworn other people had organised it but it came out it was him. I had always thought it just happened now I see he planned it to happen. Anyway, this led to horrible arguments and as he says there is only so much more he can take if me bringing it up. I feel full of anger at myself and at him

8 months ago

This is awfully close to the affair, just getting by is all I would expect. There will be lots of swings up and down to go. At this point, all you really know is that you are willing to try to work in reconciliation.

my husband refused to go to individual

He is trying to avoid learning his true why's. He doesn't want to face it. My FWS did go to IC, but lied to the counselor for months on end, spinning a false story about her affair (by her own admission later - I wasn't there and neither was our MC). Why? Because per her own admission later, she didn't want this very nice IC to know just how terribly she had behaved and treated others.

He is probably afraid the IC will call him out on his bullshit.

I’m so sorry you’re here. We had good luck with MC and IC. 8 months out, you actually seem to be doing better than I was at that point.

I, too, told EVERYONE. I pretty much lost my mind for a year or two. About a year out I my shock turned to anger.

Nearly 5 years out, I’d say I’m 95% healed. In some ways, we’ve become closer. It’s certainly a much better marriage now than the one that was vulnerable to the A. But, only because we both had to go all in for recovery. MC was sympathetic to my FWH, as well. It was hard for me to recognize that the A had nothing to do with me or the marriage, but rather had everything to do with my FWH and the former "friend" OW who was nothing more than willing.

I’m sorry you’re here.

Hi Lemonpie

I'm sorry you're here but I'm also glad you found your way to this forum. You will get a lot of support here from some very wise people who have trodden this path.

It concerns me greatly that your MC has gone down the 'unmet needs' route. I would seriously consider stopping MC until you have both done some individual work. He needs to get to the bottom of why he made those choices in the first place - unless this happens then I don't believe you'll have true reconciliation.

What I realised (I'm nearly a year after DDay) after a few months of attempted reconciliation is that I had to stop focusing on the outcome of the marriage and start focusing on myself: self-acceptance, forgiveness (myself, not WH), meeting my own needs, working out what my boundaries are for a future healthy relationship (whether that's with my WH or not). You need to heal from this trauma whatever happens with your spouse.

Keep posting and reading - I find it helps me enormously.

I think part of the reason you are not letting go of the anger and resentment is because he is not giving you good enough reason to do so.

For example: the Christmas party should be a non-issue because he shouldn't be going. Period. What he should have done, if he was 'getting it', would have been to approach you about this subject. If you had zero issues with him going, then fine, but he should already known that you MAY VERY WELL have a problem with this, and should have been working on the explanation of his absence to his coworkers.

Do you know what you DON'T do? Argue with your betrayed partner about it. It's pretty hard not to seem angry and bitter when our wayward partner refuses to make any real changes. That's what got you two to where you are today. And if you think that you are the one hindering reconciliation, I suggest that you reevaluate that position.

I am willing to bet that you do not like who you have currently become. I see that you are working on that, but until he gets his head out his ass, things will likely not improve in the direction you are hoping. Make that clear to him.

I have become mean and bitter. He gets really angry when I do. It is destroying our relationship. We are in counselling. How do I let this go? What worked for others?

The anger phase hit me around 6 months after Dday...and it was a doozy!! It actually scared me because I had never felt like this before. I was spewing poison out at my H and lashing out at everything I could in this visceral, raw ANGER. I didn't tell anyone else about my H's A...but I sure did RANT and RAVE on here!!

I knew this was hurting ME...I could feel it in my psyche...and physically as well. I read somewhere that anger is a secondary emotion...brought on by a primary emotion such as hurt, shame, guilt, etc. When I started focusing on what the primary emotion was...and dealing with that...the anger started to subside. It took a while for me to learn how to get to the primary emotion...but once I conquered the first one...I was able to get to the rest of the flare ups rather early and quench them before I had the major blowups. At 9 years out...I can confidently say that I rarely get those feelings...Thank You God!!

Your H probably feels a LOT of shame and guilt through this...and it seems he is lashing out in anger too because of those feelings. HE needs to work on this as well!! This could be a healing experience for both of you IF he is agreeable to this. But this is something that will help YOU...and if he doesn't learn from this...you will see that he is unworthy of having you as his wife.

Anyway, this led to horrible arguments and as he says there is only so much more he can take if me bringing it up. I feel full of anger at myself and at him.

If my H would have said this at ANY POINT in my recovery...I would have opened the door for him to LEAVE!!! You kicked him out once...and there isn't any reason why you can't do it again. HE WILL RESPECT YOU or he can LEAVE. HE caused this so HE needs to be there to help you heal...UNTIL. Whatever UNTIL looks like for YOU...that is how long HE should be there to help you recover. PERIOD. IF your H doesn't agree to THIS...he can leave. IF your MC doesn't agree to THIS...then you need to find a new MC.

Your feelings are very valid on ALL of these points Dear Lady . YOU KNOW this. Knowledge is POWER ! YOU have this power now...and you WILL do what is best for YOU. Your H can either go along with your healing...and work on healing himself too...or he can watch from the outside while you begin the healing process. Once you DO heal though...you will see with more clarity about who you want in your life .

Hope you are okay op. Are you going to change counsellor?

How can meeting someone’s needs improve their core values? It doesn’t make any sense at all. Watching them play soccer, buying them a gift, helping them fix their car, watching Shakespeare together - it doesn’t make them honest, have self respect and integrity.

It’s almost as daft as thinking having an affair is an appropriate response to being unhappy with your marriage. Sneaking about behind someone’s back gives you more problems, it certainly doesn’t fix the ones you have. (Especially as you are hoping your spouse doesn’t know about it).

Thank you for your messages. They have really helped. I am guessing the anger is normal then. I think it really didn’t help that I told so many people. I was so angry and because he had questioned my sanity when I thought he was having an affair but denied it, I was really horrible about him as I felt vindicated in finally finding out the truth that I didn’t think of the consequences. He had been treating me pretty badly before and I just spilled open to people all of the things that had happened. He was very verbally abusive. But it was one sided and they only heard my side. Now we have to live with people knowing and like you said, there is a huge guilt and shame for both of us.

My husband has said thing’s recently like I need to get over it, show him love and respect (as he needs this) or he will go and find someone else which I feel just further damages my ability to trust him. In other ways he has massively changed, he is more present with the children, the verbal abuse has all stopped and is more considerate to me but I feel so damaged.

I don’t feel to blame for his affair. I fully admit I can be cold at times and not physically affectionate (we had regular sex so that wasn’t the problem). However, he has a lot of childhood trauma and I think it was a midlife crisis. He also drinks excessively and can we have far more arguments when he has been drinking.
I feel anger towards myself for not just leaving but we had really young children and I see all of these amazing changes he has made but yet I seem to despise him a lot if the time but afraid of it ending . Good to know that it is normal.

I think the marriage counselling is an attachment based repair and is getting us to hear each others hurt.

You know that the A is NOT your shame to carry. I know that it might seem that way at times. It took me nearly 5 years to recognize that. I went through a period where I regretted telling so many people. I no longer care. 1. I no longer care what people think of me. 2. I desperately
needed the support of friends. and 3. Looking back, and I'm not trying to excuse or normalize affairs, it happens SO often. 50% of all marriages. I used to look at crowds of people and try to determine who the "assholes" were.

You H needs to OWN his own shame. He needs to accept that he was "that guy" to heal, as much as you do. The Christmas party thing is disturbing, but my FWH has had similar questions at about the same time. He said, it wasn't that he WANTED to see OW, but rather wanted to experience things as they were before the A was outed. For us, I had to make it abundantly clear to him that there were certain things I would absolutely not tolerate. It wasn't obvious to him at the time. (Although, that baffled me...how could he not know????). The MC had to hammer in to FWH that this wasn't reasonable to expect that I would be ok with ANY semblance or ANY interaction with OW. That needed to be profoundly black and white. There are people who change jobs, move, etc. He needs to understand that continuing to work in the same place continues to trigger you. You can't control those triggers. This isn't a situation where if you just forgive him, you'll magically be better. This is a direct consequence of choices he made that hurt you. And, those continuous triggers make recovery take longer.

Now, he knows that everyone knows he had an affair. There is nothing he can do about it. But, he also can't change his past mistakes. He can and does live a different life now. And, he is a changed man. He's not the same person who had the affair.

I can empathize with the "feeling crazy" thing. Felt the same way.

Hang in there.

My husband has said thing’s recently like I need to get over it, show him love and respect (as he needs this) or he will go and find someone else which I feel just further damages my ability to trust him. In other ways he has massively changed, he is more present with the children, the verbal abuse has all stopped and is more considerate to me but I feel so damaged.

He is still being abusive if he's saying stuff like that, and of course it damages trust and makes you angry. Is he saying stuff like this while drinking? That doesn't excuse the behavior - it just means that if he wants your marriage to work, he needs to stop drinking. Remember that all abusive people have periods of good behavior. You will have to see if it lasts, and that is a very difficult part of this process.

I agree with others that he needs IC but mostly he needs to open himself up to the idea that he is not being a good husband to you. A lot of WSes have fragile egos and they will distort reality to protect their self-image. Until he can get past that, he will not feel safe to you. The resentment will build. Lies and/or boundary crossing (like going to the party) will continue. I've been through this. I'm a year out, and getting past resentment now is very hard for me, too, because of my WH's behavior for such a long time. He finally pulled his head out of his ass a couple months ago, after he started the Affair Recovery class for waywards, but it's been tough for me to get past the damage he did in the meantime. You are not alone in this.

This is really helpful and I am so glad some of you have come out the other side. Sounds like it was hard but worth it. I can’t seem to screen shot but lots of helpful advice.

Yeah the drinking is a problem. It is mostly everyday worse since the affair came out. He knows it is a problem but doesn’t want to quit. He tries to cut down but we will have an argument or a dad day at work and he is back drinking again.

He is very up and down, as am I. One minute telling me how much he loves me then when drunk that he hates me and never loved me. I think this comes from me having said that if we were not married and had kids I would have left him. That I am trying to reconcile for the children. My family live in a different country so I would be all on my own or I would move away and he would not see them as much. I struggle to say I love him where he freely says it but I feel it is false. He has, as mentioned a fragile ego so becomes very defensive but it just damages the love I had for him even more.

I think how I communicate can come across as cold, and lots of signs of contempt from me, like rolled eyes. I don’t run out to greet him when he gets home. I am thoughtless and don’t check in enough with him where as he has always been better at this. Sorry just venting now and I am just so thorn between wanting this to work for our family but so angry. I think focusing on me and the kids is a good idea and giving it time to see if he can sustain these changes and continue the work.

The anger and resentment would probably get better if he wasn't continually emotionally abusing you. To say things like this post affair are not very remorseful or empathetic to the trauma he has put you in...

he says there is only so much more he can take if me bringing it up.

when drunk that he hates me and never loved me.

My husband has said thing’s recently like I need to get over it, show him love and respect (as he needs this) or he will go and find someone else

I don't think he gets it at all and wants you to be quiet and sweep this under the rug forever. He doesn't want IC, doesn't want to quit his job even though he still works with AP and doesn't want to quit drinking yet wants YOU to get over it.

If it were me I would start doing the 180 and focus on my healing. I don't see a lot to work with here and his words and actions would cause myself to feel anger and resentment. He is displaying a lot of selfish tendencies and focusing on how this A and it's fallout makes HIM feel rather than how he has traumatized YOU.

The drinking thing is definitely a problem. He sounds very abusive in your post. We both had to table drinking for awhile. Mostly, because it would make it likely that I would lose all ability to control MY rage. It just didn't help us. Please take care. There is a healing that he'll have to do for himself for this to work. It took my FWH some time to figure that out, but asking you to stop bringing it up at all or to respect him when he's behaved in a way that NO one would respect him isn't helpful for you or the marriage. Seriously, he's pulled the rug out from under you. It sounds like he needs you to validate him. What he needs to really get through this for you both is no longer needing external validation in the same way. He's going to need to dig deep.

Seriously, my FWH is a different man now. I see it everyday in him being present and involved in our day to day experiences. He's much more patient and present with our son, with his family, with me. It does take time, and always longer than the WS wants....or the BS for that matter. We lean into each other and are much more emotionally connected. What I'm hearing in your posts, doesn't jive with what I was getting at the same time from my FWH. He wasn't perfect. Everyone has bad days when they're grumpy, but he's fundamentally different now. There was no new a behavior that I could see, but he did mess up from time to time. Like suggesting that we go to some event where I knew OW would be. Now, when I have those mind movies or questions that I need to ask....mostly they were answered long ago and I have to think about if it will make me feel better or worse. Us, better or worse.

With alcohol....my FWH would say things like..."if it wasn't for our son, I'm not sure I'd make it". or "it would definitely be easier if we split". That was hurtful at the time. So we stopped. It wasn't helping us. But, if there was a book...or an assignment the MC gave us....or anything anywhere that he could try to help....he was doing it. It was obvious, even when I didn't trust him...that he was willing to do whatever he could. This doesn't sound the same from your posts. Granted, it also took me time to really be able to see that through my shock and pain.

Another thing, I am remembering about that first year.....I'm not sure I wanted to stay in the marriage. I had agreed to work on it, but hadn't really committed that it could work out. Maybe it is too soon to expect that from yourself or from him. Maybe just focus on working on your own healing. You're going to have to do that no matter what.

Think of what you want your life to be. Hold it in your heart. Is he helping you get there?

No you don't have to wonder about if you should be amazed at your Anger. Anger is a tool. It's a flag that says I'm hurt, back off, make a mends. Anger tells us something needs to change.

You decide what needs to change to bring healing and peace to your spirit. What needs to happen to bring you a calm and happy life? You go toward the changes. Is he coming along or not?

He made rotten choices before, is he going to make better ones now or is it going to be more of the same selfish mindset from him? Be listening. Be watching. What is he choosing today? Healing not easy but it's incredibly rewarding. Do it for yourself. Good for him if he comes along. Also that working with ow has to stop. That's the first thing he needs to fix. Poor me....doesn't want to? That tells you so much right there.